This week Chris Deacy is joined by James Newton to discuss the films; Biggles, Steptoe and Son Ride Again, The King, and Carlito's Way.
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00:00 [Music]
00:12 Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club.
00:14 I'm Chris Neesey and each week I'll be joined by a guest from Kent to dive deep into the
00:18 impact certain films have had on their life.
00:22 Each guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years.
00:26 But every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia where we quiz you at home about a film that
00:31 has a connection to the county.
00:34 And now let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:37 He lectures in Film and Media at the University of Kent and is a filmmaker.
00:41 His first feature film, Black Lizard Tales, premiered at the Sydney Access Festival in
00:46 2020.
00:47 He is James Newton.
00:49 Welcome James.
00:50 Thank you for having me, Chris.
00:52 Absolute pleasure.
00:53 So you're going to tell me about the first film that you've chosen which is Biggles.
00:56 Why Biggles?
00:57 It's a very, very good question.
01:00 And it's a film that I don't have, when it comes to films, I don't have any guilt over
01:06 what I like.
01:07 I don't think people should.
01:08 I think if you like a film and it speaks to you in some way and it connects with you in
01:13 some way, then have no guilt over enjoying this film.
01:17 But this is a film that has historically had rather bad reviews and was not very well thought
01:22 of when it was first released.
01:24 But I have always loved it since I first saw it when I saw it at the Canon ABC in Wolverhampton
01:31 when it came out in 1986.
01:34 And the story from watching, I don't think, this is my memory anyway, I don't think we
01:39 actually went to see Biggles.
01:40 We were going to see Clockwise.
01:43 But Clockwise was packed, right?
01:45 So we couldn't get in to see Clockwise.
01:47 And the only other film that was showing, or the one other film that we could have gone
01:50 to see, was Biggles.
01:51 So my mum took me and I think my sister to see Biggles, although she would have been
01:55 very young.
01:56 And, I mean, I just, I kind of love this film right from off the bat, you know.
02:01 And then I got into the Biggles books for a little while by Captain W. Johns.
02:08 And I was interested in Biggles for a number of years.
02:10 And the film's always stuck with me.
02:13 It's a bit of an oddity as a film in that the Biggles books are set in World War I.
02:20 And it's all this kind of derring-do, this ace fighter pilot, Captain James Bigglesworth.
02:28 The film tries to tie itself in to the mid-'80s time travel boom, right?
02:38 So for some reason, they've decided to put a time travel twist into the movie.
02:44 So it's a bit of an odd beast.
02:47 And Biggles in the movie is the time twin to an American TV food salesman.
02:57 It's a bizarre piece.
02:59 And the film jets between London in 1986 and 1917, France.
03:08 And they kind of flip back in time to and fro.
03:11 So you can imagine it would have a-- I think it hit me when I was young because of the
03:16 kind of World War I material.
03:19 These really good flying sequences and the action scenes.
03:23 But also there's a lot going on in terms of the movie.
03:26 In terms of switching back in time in times.
03:28 And it's a very colourful, fun adventure film.
03:31 There are so many films that do that.
03:33 And I think it was called Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour from
03:37 that sort of era.
03:38 But that sort of notion of two different distinct periods.
03:41 But there's one that we can all relate to.
03:42 You would have been a young boy at the time watching this.
03:45 But has it stood the test of time?
03:48 So is Biggles something that you can watch now?
03:50 Are you sort of nostalgic for when you first saw it?
03:52 Or is it a film that's really sort of of its moment?
03:54 I'm going to say this about any of the films that we talk about today.
03:57 I could watch it now.
03:58 Right?
03:59 You could put it now and I could sit here for 90 minutes and watch it.
04:01 I think it stands the test of time.
04:03 I mean, of course, if you show it to some kids, they're going to think-- maybe they
04:07 think it was slow.
04:08 I don't know.
04:09 I think it holds up.
04:10 I mean, again, because it comes after that-- it was clearly an attempt, I think, by British
04:15 filmmakers to try and get a kind of British hero off the ground.
04:20 And they tied it into a little bit the back to the future aspect of it.
04:23 They bring in a bit of the Indiana Jones to it as well.
04:27 So there's some very, quite-- I would say quite extreme gore in this film at one point
04:33 that always gets censored out when they show this on television.
04:35 They will show it on 2 o'clock in the afternoon on some obscure channel on Freeview.
04:41 But then it always gets edited.
04:43 So I think there's enough there to keep children interested.
04:45 It's quite a bizarre, quite a surreal piece.
04:47 And I've got to ask, because you said that it was between this and Clockwise, or rather
04:51 Clockwise was the film.
04:52 Have you seen Clockwise?
04:53 And at the time, were you disappointed because you didn't get to see the film that you wanted?
04:57 Or have you ever looked back and wondered what if?
04:59 Because the film's all about those what if moments and the different periods of time.
05:02 But that almost just reflected in your own experience.
05:04 I think that's a really good way of thinking about it, yeah.
05:07 I love Clockwise.
05:08 I mean, I could have put that on the list.
05:11 I mean, that's a fantastic, fantastic film.
05:14 I don't think I would have got as much out of Clockwise when I was that age as I did
05:19 Beagles.
05:20 But yeah, I mean, I think...
05:24 What was the second question?
05:25 Well, no, so this whole thing about Clockwise, so you saw one film.
05:31 You were meant to see the other.
05:32 I mean, I've had this with...
05:34 I was once torn between...
05:35 Well, I wasn't torn.
05:36 Shawshank Redemption and Little Women.
05:38 And I've never seen Little Women or that particular version.
05:40 But I've seen the Shawshank Redemption.
05:41 But I wonder if it's the same with you.
05:42 You saw Beagles by accident and it almost...
05:45 It was life-changing.
05:46 Yeah, absolutely.
05:47 I mean, that's really...
05:48 Yeah, really, it's a really interesting way of thinking about it.
05:51 I think it's hard to say how I would have enjoyed Clockwise at the time as much as I
05:57 enjoyed Beagles.
05:58 But then thinking about it, it seems like the kind of film I would have wanted to go
06:02 and see anyway.
06:03 I mean, and I only know this now because I've got the DVD and there's the special features
06:08 on the DVD.
06:09 There was a Blue Peter special episode with Beagles on it.
06:14 There was a Beagles computer...
06:15 I mean, I never had it.
06:17 But Beagles computer game.
06:19 So there was an attempt at a big launch.
06:21 Now I can see, if I'm being hypercritical of the film, I can see why audiences used
06:27 to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and James would have thought the budget maybe
06:32 slightly exceeds its grasp.
06:34 So it is a low-budget film.
06:35 It is a film that maybe can't quite do the big set pieces as much as some of these big
06:41 American films were doing.
06:44 So I can see why some people...
06:45 Why it didn't hit as much as maybe they thought it was going to.
06:50 But I can't recall being aware of it before I went to see it.
06:53 Well, you have persuaded me.
06:55 I have seen Clockwise, not at the cinema.
06:57 I think we need to move on to your second chosen film.
07:00 You've chosen Steptoe and Son right again.
07:03 When I saw this as one of your choices, my eyes opened up.
07:09 Because obviously I'm very familiar with the Steptoe and Son TV series, but this is the
07:13 film spin-off?
07:14 Yes.
07:15 It's the sequel.
07:16 So it's the second film spin-off.
07:19 So the first film from 1972, Steptoe and Son.
07:22 This is the sequel that came two years later.
07:26 Now, I mean, there's nothing not to like about this film.
07:31 I can talk about it in deeply intellectual ways.
07:34 I can talk about it in very shallow, kind of visceral ways, in the effect that it has.
07:40 But I think the reason why I like it so much, or one of the reasons that I'd like to talk
07:44 about, is the way it kind of bonds audiences.
07:48 So this was one of many films that were spin-offs of British sitcoms in the 1970s that went
07:56 onto the big screen.
07:57 And these were critically reviled films.
08:00 They're thought of as trash.
08:03 But audiences loved them.
08:05 I mean, the two films were Steptoe and Son.
08:09 Three films were on the buses.
08:11 So these films, they connected audiences.
08:13 Audiences loved them.
08:15 And I bonded with not only my family over this film, when we watched this taped off
08:19 the TV, but also with friends as well.
08:22 And they wouldn't necessarily know all the Steptoe and Son writing.
08:25 They'd just call it the Steptoe and Son film.
08:27 And they'd say, which one are you talking about?
08:28 I was, oh, the one with the greyhound.
08:29 Or the one with the greyhound.
08:30 Oh, yeah, that's it.
08:31 And then you'd kind of bond over a love of this really wild and wacky film.
08:35 And I was in a pub in Wolverhampton about three years ago.
08:39 And it was about December the 27th or 28th.
08:42 And some guy at the bar, he was talking quite loud.
08:44 And he said, oh, I'll tell you what.
08:45 I watched the other night on the TV.
08:46 The Steptoe and Son movie was on.
08:48 And then some guy he didn't even know in the corner of the bar said to him, is that the
08:51 one with the greyhound?
08:52 He said, yeah, that's the one with the greyhound.
08:54 And these guys who didn't even know each other-- I mean, about four or five people in the pub
08:57 were talking about how much they loved this film.
08:59 Well, I wasn't talking to them.
09:00 They were separate from me.
09:01 I find this-- because I think of, like, Are You Being Served as well.
09:06 And even, I suppose, not a film, but One Foot in the Algarve.
09:09 But a lot of these films had to differ in some way from the staples of the sitcom by
09:15 often having an overseas holiday, an overseas anniversary.
09:18 What is it about Steptoe and Son right again that's distinctive?
09:20 Well, OK, I don't think it does as much as those other films.
09:24 They do briefly go abroad in the first film when Harold has his short-lived honeymoon.
09:30 But then they actually leave the country.
09:33 So Steptoe and Son is known for being a kind of-- it's a very pathos-- it's steeped in
09:39 pathos, the sitcom.
09:41 And that's very much what the first film is about.
09:43 The second film, Ride Again, is very much just taking the kind of wackier edges of the
09:49 Steptoe and Son series and blowing them up, right up to 11.
09:53 And there's a blind greyhound that they've bought off the local godfather of Shepard's
09:58 Bush, the local loan shark gangster, who's going to-- if they don't pay back this loan
10:04 on the greyhound, they're going to get sliced up with razor blades by the end of the week.
10:10 But the greyhound's blind, so it can't run.
10:13 So they make it contact lenses.
10:15 And there's a kind of utterly bizarre, kind of wacky plot.
10:21 And he's got all sorts of cameos.
10:23 You've got Diana Dawes turns up in it.
10:24 Euthy Joyce turns up in it.
10:27 But it doesn't actually do that kind of go abroad thing.
10:33 In fact, it steeps it very much in London of the time.
10:37 And there's all sorts of locations that you will never see again.
10:41 The streets are lined with graffiti.
10:42 It's shot almost entirely on location, even though you've got these kind of crazy things
10:46 happening.
10:47 It's set in tower blocks.
10:48 It's set in a junkyard.
10:50 It's shot in the streets of London with real extras in the background, a gang of children
10:55 climbing on a burnt out car as Steptoe's horse and cart walks past.
11:02 Even though you've got these quite mad happenings, like you've got people being buried alive
11:08 and resurrected out of mausoleums and all sorts of-- Diana Dawes tries to seduce Harold
11:14 literally over her husband's dead body.
11:17 I'll leave that to your imagination.
11:18 And even though you've got all these crazy things happening, it's shot in the streets.
11:26 And it's a real kind of realistic film.
11:28 Well, on that bombshell, James, that's about all the time we have for this first half of
11:33 the show.
11:34 However, before we go to the break, we have a Kent film trivia question for you at home.
11:38 Which 1970 film not only stars Dartford-born Mick Jagger, but also features him on its
11:45 official soundtrack?
11:47 Is it A) Cucumber Castle, B)
11:50 Performance or C) Ned Kelly?
11:53 We'll reveal the answer right after this break.
11:55 Don't go away.
12:04 Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:06 Now just before the ad break, we asked you at home a Kent film trivia question.
12:11 Which 1970 film not only stars Dartford-born Mick Jagger, but also features him on its
12:16 official soundtrack?
12:18 I asked is it A) Cucumber Castle, B)
12:21 Performance or C) Ned Kelly?
12:24 And now I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact B)
12:27 Performance in the film a violent gangster seeks refuge from the mob in the bohemian
12:32 home of a former rock star played by Mick Jagger.
12:36 Did you get the answer right?
12:37 Well, I think it is time now James to move on to your next chosen film.
12:42 It is The King.
12:43 Why The King?
12:44 Well, I wanted to pick a film, I thought a couple of my other ones, certainly the ones
12:48 before the break, maybe were slightly more obscure.
12:51 I wanted to pick one where viewers at home could go and watch it right now.
12:55 A lot of people have Netflix at home.
12:57 So it's a film that was made for Netflix.
12:58 I think it was released on the pictures for a short period of time.
13:01 I think you saw it in the cinema.
13:02 I saw it in Canterbury, yes.
13:04 In Canterbury.
13:05 And I didn't come to it until after I watched it on Netflix.
13:08 And it's a film that I watched when it came out and I was really blown away by it really.
13:13 I found it a very rousing picture.
13:17 A fan of Henry V, the Shakespeare play, which is based on, it's also based a little bit
13:22 on Henry IV Part 2.
13:24 And it's a sort of, it's a pejorative expression I suppose, but kind of cod Shakespeare version
13:29 of those plays with these kind of pretty young men, you know, talking in really sort of Shakespearean
13:37 dialogue, but not really.
13:40 It was the first time I'd seen Timothee Chalamet in the lead role of Henry V. I thought he
13:46 was fantastic.
13:47 A really good supporting cast, Joel Edgerton as full staff, Ben Mendelsohn turns up, Lily
13:54 Rose Depp, Johnny Depp's daughter, Sean Harris, who's been in some of the more recent, Mission
13:59 Impossible films, he's in it as well.
14:02 And I just thought it was a really kind of rousing, medieval epic.
14:06 And there's a brilliant, my favourite scene, it's probably most people's favourite scene
14:09 if they've seen it, is the version of the St Crispin's Day speech, which they rewrite
14:15 here and they have Timothee Chalamet delivering to the troops before the Battle of Agincourt.
14:20 It's a fantastic moment.
14:21 Now what I do remember is that there was almost a sort of Welsh Braveheart element.
14:27 Am I right?
14:28 Have I imagined that?
14:29 Is there some Welsh element to the film?
14:31 And the film reminded me in some way of Braveheart, so I don't know whether I've conflated two
14:36 completely different things.
14:37 Is that a fair interpretation?
14:38 Well, I don't know.
14:39 The Welsh thing, I don't recall.
14:42 But the Braveheart, I think Braveheart sort of cornered the market in medieval epics,
14:47 right?
14:48 I mean, so I suppose, certainly in the last 30 or 35 years or so, 30 years or so.
14:54 And so I think it's difficult to ever watch a medieval battle scene without thinking of
14:58 Braveheart in some way, right?
15:00 I mean, there's some historical discussion amongst historians as to whether kings ever
15:07 delivered those speeches on the edges of battlefields, right?
15:10 But I don't care whether they did, right?
15:12 They look good in the film.
15:14 I always think, how do the people at the back kind of hear what's going on?
15:17 It's a Monty Python, Life of Brian moment.
15:20 It is very much so.
15:21 It is very much so, yeah.
15:22 I mean, I find this an intriguing thing because obviously this is based on a historical event,
15:29 but it's also filtered through Shakespeare and now a film dramatisation.
15:33 So there's no sense you're going to watch this and imagine that somehow you're seeing
15:36 some sort of documentary footage from the Middle Ages or medieval age.
15:42 But what is it about the king that is distinctive from all the other films with all the battles
15:48 and the villains and the sort of...
15:49 I remember watching it and sometimes my problem with films of this genre, sometimes I'm thinking,
15:54 oh, there's this big badge, a lot of money's been spent on this, but sorry, who's on which
15:57 side and I'm watching it and I sometimes just think there's a lot going on here, but I'm
16:02 not processing it.
16:03 But there's the human drama underneath it, which I think you captured very well.
16:06 Yeah, I think so.
16:07 I think it's the Shakespearean elements.
16:09 And also you've got a film about a kind of boy becoming a man, right?
16:13 I mean, and that makes it sound more trite than maybe it is.
16:15 But Henry V, he's portrayed in Shakespeare and in the film, he's kind of, he's out there,
16:22 he's a drinker, he's a playboy, right?
16:24 And it's about somebody assuming responsibility, right?
16:27 And so it doesn't have to be about kings.
16:30 It's about people having to assume that kind of, take on the weight of the world on your
16:37 shoulders and develop as a person.
16:41 And I think that's what the film is really about, but telling it through the story of
16:45 this huge historical figure.
16:49 And that's what's so clever about a lot of these films.
16:51 I mean, a film that came to my mind, which doesn't necessarily fit what you've said is
16:54 Dead Poets Society, but again, that sort of notion of somebody growing up, somebody going
16:58 from a child to being a man with all the hurdles along the way.
17:01 But here, talking about somebody who's, and of course it obviously relates to issues around
17:04 monarchy and of course in relation to recent events, then I can imagine why this would
17:10 really appeal, the sort of the machinations.
17:11 I think of Francis Urquhart, House of Cards as well.
17:14 All of those sort of elements here about the power, the way that power causes people to
17:18 have to become more ruthless sort of people.
17:21 And as I recall, he is a very ruthless character.
17:24 But whether he was ruthless at the beginning or like in The Godfather, he becomes ruthless
17:29 by virtue of almost like his profession.
17:33 That I find really interesting.
17:34 I think The Godfather is a really good comparison.
17:37 And another one that comes to mind is the Cate Blanchett, where Cate Blanchett's as
17:42 Elizabeth, as Elizabeth I, where she goes from one thing to another and very ruthless
17:46 by the end.
17:47 And I think that film specifically references The Godfather in the last kind of 20 minutes.
17:51 But The Godfather's a really good example here, where you've got, it's very, ruthless
17:56 to the point of being misguided by the end.
18:01 And there's a fantastic moment towards the last 20 minutes where he's betrothed to be
18:05 married to Lily Rose Depp and the way she just kind of calls him on his hypocrisy and
18:10 his foolishness that's led to the deaths of thousands of people.
18:14 And I think it's a wonderful moment.
18:16 I think the viewers will get a lot from it.
18:18 And does it matter whether you see it on Netflix or in the cinema?
18:22 Because I did see it at the cinema and I think, did you see it at home?
18:25 I only saw it on Netflix.
18:27 And do you think that it would have worked better on the big screen?
18:30 Do you wish you had seen it on the big screen?
18:32 Absolutely.
18:33 I mean, but it's impossible to tell now.
18:36 But I think everything is always going to look better on the big screen.
18:40 But if you haven't got one, what are you going to do?
18:42 No, no, very well put.
18:44 Very well put.
18:45 Okay.
18:46 Well, I think it's now time to move on to your final chosen film, which is also, I have
18:49 to be honest, one of my favourites as well.
18:51 It's Carlito's Way.
18:53 Why Carlito's Way?
18:55 Well, I wanted to pick, both me and you, I think, are both fans of films from the 1990s.
19:03 Is that when we were doing most of our cinema going?
19:06 And Carlito's Way is just a film that sometimes gets forgotten and lost.
19:11 I think one of the reasons it does is it's directed by Brian De Palma, who famously worked
19:16 with Al Pacino prior to Carlito's Way on Scarface in 1983.
19:21 Now Scarface is seen as the gold standard of the Brian De Palma, Al Pacino gangster
19:27 films.
19:28 And I think Carlito's Way suffers slightly in that it covers superficially the same ground
19:33 or similar ground, but people didn't think it was quite as bombastic or as fresh.
19:39 But for me, it's a far superior piece of work.
19:43 And I wanted to talk about it a little bit because it's a film that often gets forgotten.
19:48 Just as in some of the other films you're talking about how they're universal stories.
19:52 I saw this as that whole thing about thwarted ambition because it could have been a film
19:57 about whether he really is reformed, rehabilitated.
20:00 He keeps saying that he is and we're thinking, no, he's not.
20:02 Because once a gangster, always a gangster.
20:05 But he really is or he really tries, but he's sucked back into this world.
20:08 But there's something there, particularly that whole chase at the end at the Grand Central
20:11 Station and it's the journey to paradise.
20:15 He's got on that big billboard, paradise.
20:17 And of course, without, I'm giving it away, but as you see at the start of the movie,
20:21 so I'm not, it's that notion of death and the idea that maybe sometimes only in death
20:25 can you accomplish your dreams.
20:27 Yeah, absolutely.
20:28 There's two sequences that the film is based around.
20:30 Well, it's not based around two sequences, but it's famous for two sequences.
20:33 You've got the pool hall sequence at the start where he's just got out of prison and he's
20:36 trying to go straight within about 15 minutes.
20:38 He's embroiled in something he does not want to be involved in.
20:41 And then the chase at the end at Grand Central Station and Brian De Palma's just brilliant
20:46 at these big set pieces and you only got to look at the untouchables for that.
20:52 But in this film, I think it's Brian De Palma's best movie.
20:57 And we should mention that one of the reasons why it's great, Pacino's great, De Palma's
21:01 on top form, everything about this is superb, but it's really takes off because of the performance
21:08 of Sean Penn as the lawyer, the shady lawyer, Dave Klinefeldt.
21:13 And that performance is really elevates this film.
21:16 It makes it kind of, it takes it from what I would, you know, a gangster going straight
21:23 picture into something that's far more meaningful.
21:26 I think the soundtrack was amazing because it was featured, I remember watching it once
21:31 thinking this is all the sort of music I'd listen to on the radio and enjoy.
21:34 But grounding it in this very context, it elevated it.
21:37 There was something very transcendental about this.
21:38 And I sort of like the noir tradition of the past catching up with you.
21:43 And because when I watch this, there's no doubt that he really, really does try to go
21:47 straight and he does everything that he can.
21:50 And he's torn between all these sort of conflicting loyalties.
21:52 But it's a film that really is about dreams and maybe the way that sometimes we don't
21:56 accomplish our dreams, but we can literally die trying.
21:59 Yeah, I mean, I think that's right.
22:02 He plays a quite a noble character, I think.
22:06 Carlito, despite everything and despite his past.
22:10 And Pacino plays it with such swagger.
22:12 I mean, there's one moment in the film where he has to literally use his kind of swagger
22:19 and his ability to kind of strike fear in his enemies to kind of get out of a very dangerous
22:23 predicament.
22:24 I won't tell the people in the audience what it is in cast.
22:27 They have not seen it, but it's in the pool hall sequence.
22:30 I mean, again, and like all the films that I've talked about today, I'm planning on watching
22:35 it tonight.
22:36 Yeah.
22:37 And well, you've set the bar for me because it's a film where you can literally say that
22:41 this is shot at redemption.
22:43 And Pacino was doing that.
22:46 But very quickly, have you ever seen this on the big screen?
22:48 Yes, I saw it when I was going.
22:52 I mean, I think probably seen it four or five times because it used to be quite cheap to
22:56 go to the cinema.
22:57 I couldn't afford to do that now.
22:59 But for some reason, when I didn't have a job, I could afford to go to the cinema as
23:02 many times as I wanted.
23:03 And so I was obviously very young, but I think I went for at least four times to watch Carlito's
23:10 way because back then you'd have to wait 10 months for the video to come out.
23:15 So it wasn't like you could watch it again the next week or in a couple of months time.
23:18 So I watched it a lot of time on the big screen.
23:21 And I loved it from the second I watched it.
23:24 And I still love it today.
23:25 Yeah.
23:26 Well, like you, I watched it many times, sadly not on the big screen.
23:29 But it's one of my biggest regrets.
23:30 But who knows?
23:32 Maybe it'll return.
23:33 Well, I'm afraid that that is all the time we have for today.
23:36 Many thanks to James Newton for joining us and being such a brilliant guest.
23:41 And many thanks, of course, to you all at home for tuning in.
23:44 Be sure to come back and join us again at the same time next week.
23:48 Until then, that's all from us.
23:49 Goodbye.
23:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]
23:53 [MUSIC PLAYING]
23:56 (upbeat music)